LHASA, May 13 (Xinhua) -- In the early morning, Kelzang Lhakyi skillfully uses ultrasound equipment to screen local herder women for cervical and breast cancers, a service she provides at a clinic in Amdo County in the city of Nagqu, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

"We screen women from the pastoral area aged from 35 to 64, and we sometimes screen more than 300 people in a day," said the 29-year-old.

Kelzang Lhakyi is a female doctor in the ultrasound department of Fokind Hospital in Tibet's capital city Lhasa. She has been dispatched to the city of Nagqu every year since 2019 with a team from her hospital to carry out screening work for cervical and breast cancers.

In the past, most herder women in Nagqu had no idea about these two kinds of cancer. Some that had been diagnosed with cancer did not appreciate the severity of the condition and were unwilling to seek medical treatment.

Cervical and breast cancers are two forms of malignant tumor that pose a serious risk to women's health. As it attaches great importance to women's health, Tibet has been promoting the prevention and control of cervical and breast cancers, launching mass screening as a basic public health service in 2019.

In the vast remote pastoral areas in Nagqu, there is often no available screening equipment, so Kelzang Lhakyi's screening team brings its own advanced equipment.

Amdo County has an average altitude of 5,200 meters, with biting cold, low oxygen levels and poor roads. On the way to Amdo County, team vehicles often get stuck in deep snow.

"It took us eight hours to reach the destination after a 170-km journey," Kelzang Lhakyi said, recalling their trip in early April.

Despite the bumpy journey, the subsequent screening work went smoothly.

Following years of screening and popularization work on the two cancers, many local women have now learned about the dangers they represent, and more and more are coming for check-ups, she said.

The screening work for 2023 is underway, said Gadrum of the Nagqu municipal health commission, adding that more than 18,400 local women were screened in the 2022 program.

During a follow-up examination in Nyima County in Nagqu this year, a 56-year-old villager said that she was diagnosed with breast cancer during a screening last August. Following the advice of doctors, the woman promptly underwent surgery at the Tibet Autonomous Region People's Hospital.

Most breast and cervical cancers can be cured if they are detected early, Kelzang Lhakyi said. "Mass screening is vital to safeguard women's health, and early detection, diagnosis and treatment can significantly raise the survival rate of women with the disease," she said.

To prevent cervical cancer, in 2022, health authorities in Tibet began to offer free HPV vaccines for school girls between 13 and 14 years old, with the free inoculations expanded to cover all of Tibet by the end of 2022. ■